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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Vote Your Progressive Values!

Dear Progressives:

“Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.” So said the father of the conservative movement, Barry Goldwater before losing to JFK in 1964. It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now. Extremism is a vice no matter how you slice it and even Goldwater would be shocked by the off-the-scale positions of his ideological progeny the teabaggers and the rest of the right-wing reactionaries currently all the rage. Heck this crowd would call Reagan a RINO and throw him under the bus!

Their thugs are using handcuffs on journalists and stomping on people’s heads for crying out loud! And that’s not the half of it. Is this what we’re coming to? Are these our values? Are these our leaders!? Is this what they call liberty? These people don’t have any ideas or solutions, only misdirected blind rage, a match and a can of gasoline.

The media is all-abuzz about an “enthusiasm gap” in this election. It’s all the herd can talk about on every channel between oilygarch financed 30 second rovian-gandabytes, designed to suppress and mislead voters. Well if there’s a gap in enthusiasm on the progressive side for going into the streets and town halls as an angry mob, shouting people down, carrying offensive signs, ranting about absurd conspiracies and pushing bizarre extremist positions, then I suppose they’re right. But if they’re referring to our enthusiasm to get out and vote for upstanding progressives like Senator Russ Feingold and preventing a corporatist sponsored wingnut takeover, they’re a class of chattering asses!

A lot of us have been a bit disappointed by the pace and degree of progress that can be made in Washington. But really, a lot of good things have been accomplished despite unrelenting GOPstructionism. Progress and sanity beats brut regression and reaction any day of the week. Tuesday I’ll be at the only poll that matters at 7:00 AM sharp, bursting with enthusiasm and I hope you and your friends and family will join me in voting our progressive values and stuffing extremism back in the bag!

OUR NEXT EVENT

In this searing exposé on the state of democracy in America and the fracturing of the Republican Party, Academy Award®-nominated directors Carl Deal and Tia Lessin (Trouble the Water; co-producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 & Bowling for Columbine) follow the money behind the rise of the Tea Party. CITIZEN KOCH investigates the impact of unlimited, anonymous spending by corporations and billionaires on the electoral process, featuring stories of life-long Republicans whose loyalty is tested when their families become collateral damage in the GOP fight to take organized labor out at the knees. Alternately terrifying and funny, CITIZEN KOCH is an essential and powerful portrait of our political times.

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Who We Are

Burlington Area Progressives is a non-profit, non-partisan group. Our mission is to inform, unify, and mobilize area citizens on local, state, and national issues.

A progressive is someone who believes in the betterment of society through progress. A progressive takes the best ideas from the past, updates them to the present, and uses them to create a better future. Progressives are concerned with freedom, social justice, education, health care, ecology, and voting rights -- among many other issues. Progressives believe that a rising tide should lift all boats. Unfortunately, the current tide seems to be lifting only a privileged few.

We believe that working together, we can turn back the waves of ignorance and oppression threatening our country and return America to the progressive values on which the country was founded -- values which made the United States a beacon of hope and freedom for the entire world.

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The opinions expressed on this site, whether in the body of the text or the comments, reflect the opinions of the posters and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of Burlington Area Progressives. As progressives, we believe strongly in the right of free expression.

"There. I guess King Georgewill be able to read that."- John Hancockupon signing the Declaration of Independencein 1776.